About 52% of adults admitted that they do not know how to protect themselves from cybercrime, according to a survey conducted by online security solutions provider NortonLifeLock

The report also said 59% of the adults in India had become victims of cybercrime in the past 12 months.

The ‘2021 Norton Cyber Safety Insights Report,’ based on the research conducted online by The Harris Poll among 10,030 adults in 10 countries, including 1,000 adults in India, also found that cybercrime victims collectively spent 1.3 billion hours trying to resolve these issues.

“In a year of lockdowns and restrictions, cybercriminals have not been deterred.” said Ritesh Chopra, director, sales and field marketing, India & SAARC countries, NortonLifeLock.

“More Indian adults fell victim to identity theft in the past 12 months and most are concerned about data privacy,” he added.

He said while the report suggested that many Indian consumers (90%) were taking proactive steps to safeguard their data, 2 in 5 still felt it was impossible to protect their privacy (42%) in this age or say they don’t know how to do so (42%).

As per the research 7 in 10 Indian adults (70%) believe that remote work has made it much easier for hackers and cybercriminals to take advantage of people.

“Around half (52%) say they do not know how to protect themselves from cybercrime, and even more (68%) say it is difficult for them to determine if the information they see online is from a credible source,” NotronLifeLock mentioned in the report.